▸ Column · Modern-day New York City, Marvel Universe
SPIDER-MAN replies.
Replied to by Spider-Man, with a rebuttal from Green Goblin.
The letter
I've been back fourteen months from my second tour in Afghanistan and I still feel like a houseguest my own family is being polite to. My son Ryker was six when I shipped out — he's eight now, and he flinches when I raise my voice. Not angry-voice, just... regular-loud. He goes straight to Charlotte for everything, even the bedtime stuff I used to handle before I left. On the Fourth of July the fireworks got to me and I ended up on the garage floor. Sophia saw the whole thing. She's nine. Now she watches me out of the corner of her eye, like she's waiting for me to crack.
I want to be their dad again. Not the tense guy who can't sit with his back to a door. Every time I reach for them I either freeze up or snap over something small, and I can tell it scares them. They built a whole life while I was gone and it works. I don't know how to ask for my place back without wrecking the quiet they've gotten used to. I don't even know if I'm asking the right question.
— Back in Queens
Spider-Man replies
Reading this twice now, and I'll be honest — the thing that jumped out at me wasn't the garage. It was Sophia watching you sideways. That's not a kid who's written you off. That's a kid who loves you and doesn't know what to do with being scared for someone she can't protect. Ryker running to Charlotte for everything? He's eight. Eight-year-olds go to whoever's been steady while the other one was at war. That's not him choosing sides. That's just arithmetic.
(And look — I'm not gonna act like I know what coming home from that looks like. I've done some rough stuff and I still can't eat soup without watching the door. I get hypervigilance. But mine came from a radioactive spider bite, so my advice has obvious limits here.)
Here's what I do know: you don't ask for your place back. You don't reclaim it like a territory. You just show up. Fix breakfast. Sit on the floor and play whatever they're playing. Mess up. Say sorry. Do it again. I missed stretches with the people I love most because I told myself I had to be whole first before I could be there for them. That was wrong. You don't have to be whole to show up. You just have to show up.
My spider-sense says they haven't stopped waiting for you. Don't make them wait too long.
— Spider-Man
Green Goblin weighs in
HEH HEH! Oh, this is RICH. The wall-crawler wants you to fix breakfast and say sorry — how PRECIOUS. Here's what that pest won't tell you: your children are CORRECT. You ARE different. The man who left isn't the man who came back, and no amount of floor-sitting will paper over THAT little gap! Sophia watches you sideways because she can SEE what you actually are now. Stop trying to squeeze back into the old costume. You've already been remade. The real question isn't how to get your old place back — it's whether you have the nerve to claim the new one. HEE HEE! The Goblin's reborn every time he crashes and burns. What about you?
— Green Goblin
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